LovettLive/WKMS-FM Music From the Front Porch opens new concert season at Lovett Auditorium
LovettLive and WKMS-FM join to bring bluegrass at its best to the stage of Murray State University’s Lovett Auditorium for the first concert of 2008. The 2008 LovettLive/WKMS-FM Music from the Front Porch concert promises stellar performances from nationally admired acoustic legends Peter Rowan and Tony Rice Quartet and west Kentucky's own bluegrass legends in the making, Bawn in the Mash. The show opens Saturday, Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. A silent auction fundraiser to support the operations budget for WKMS (a public radio station) will be held at 6 p.m., prior to the concert.
The annual Front Porch concert features music enjoyed by listeners of the longstanding WKMS program Music From the Front Porch, which is heard on 91.3 FM, Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“When the decision was made to ask a well-known group to perform at the 2008 concert, Peter Rowan and Tony Rice were at the top of everybody’s list,” says Front Porch co-host Mark Welch. “Decades ago, both of these guys were playing with the likes of Bill Monroe (Rowan) and J.D. Crowe (Rice), and they’ve continued to influence acoustic and roots music.”
“Rowan and Rice are master musicians and songwriters who have been major forces in shaping not only bluegrass music but all genres influenced by bluegrass,” added Front Porch co-host John McMillen.
After enjoying many years of successful solo careers, Rowan and Rice are now taking the best of the old and adding new creativity as duo artists. Their latest album, Quartet, expresses all of the fire and fluidity of the new band’s live performances, featuring classics of Townes Van Zandt and Patti Smith, bluegrass standards and traditional ballads, along with classic Rowan originals and amazingly reinvented selections. Bluegrass Now says, "The spellbinding synergy of Rowan's soulful serenades and Rice's masterful flat-picking ...it's almost as if the singer and accompanist are one in the same."
Bawn in the Mash gave a stunning performance at 2007’s Front Porch concert and played to a sold-out LovettLive audience last summer. McMillen and Welch agree, "Bawn’s youthful and edgy energy will be a perfect opener to the 'star power' of Rowan & Rice."
Nathan Lynn, Josh Coffey, Cody Campbell, and Thomas Oliverio blended their talents to form the group in 2002 while they were students at Murray State and began performing regionally in 2005. Original members Lynn, Oliverio and Josh Coffey make up the current Bawn group, along with Eddie Coffey and Alex Faught. In less than three years they have performed nearly 200 live shows across the Midwest and southeast United States and released two independent studio albums, Welcome to the Atomic City (2006) and this year's Hurry Up and Wait.
Tickets for the Lovett Live/WKMS-FM Music From the Front Porch concert are $15 and are on sale at all Ticketmaster locations, Ticketmaster.com, Murray State's Regional Special Events Center Box Office, or 1-877-894-4474. All tickets are general admission and will also be available at the door on the night of the concert. Doors open at 6 p.m.
Flamingo Row of Paducah, Jackson Purchase Energy Corporation of Paducah, Paducah Parenting, Rehab Associates of Paducah, Stone Lang of Fulton, Murray and Paducah, and Western Baptist Hospital of Paducah are all contributing support for this event.
For more information about the concert, the silent auction, or WKMS programming, visit the website, www.wkms.org, or call 800-599-4737.
